Best & worst airlines

If you’re tired of airline flights that leave you too frazzled to enjoy your trip, we have a new recommendation for you. Virgin America, a newcomer to our Ratings, got a clear thumbs-up from readers in our latest survey.

In an era of airlines changing, merging, and inventing new fees, getting the best deal hasn’t gotten any easier. But we’ll tell you how to search for the best fares and what you’ll pay in fees from the major carriers. We also have insights from more than 16,000 readers who told us about a total of 31,732 domestic flights in our survey, conducted in February by the Consumer Reports National Research Center.